


put your arms around me, baby

by collieflower



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Fluff, Fourth of July, Gays in the 90's, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, It's the 90's baby!, M/M, Sneaking Out, The Quarry, just know it's there in my eyes, teens doing teen things, there's bill/bev/mike if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 10:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collieflower/pseuds/collieflower
Summary: Cursing, Eddie scrambled. He pulled on his sneakers and cast a single glance towards his jacket before deciding he wouldn’t need it.He was halfway to the window when he circled back and grabbed the windbreaker anyway. He grabbed his backpack, and handed it off to Richie, who unceremoniously dropped it to the grass below, narrowly missing the hedges. Richie offered a hand out to Eddie, and Eddie didn’t think twice before taking it.And then he let go, of course. He had to tie his windbreaker around his waist.Eddie followed Richie out into the late July night, grinning at the heat and the wind tousling his hair.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 58





	put your arms around me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> im only capable of finishing fics if i loop hozier albums and that's a fact

"Maybe we should go check on them," Bev murmured after a minute. She ashed the cigarette between her fingers and sighed. “The fireworks are going to start soon.”

"Suh-suh-sun’s still up,” Bill put in. “They p-pruh-probably just got c-caught up. Or m-mm-maybe they stopped tuh-to get food."

"They better bring some back,” Mike looked much too at ease, already down to his boxers, soaking in the last drops of sunlight the late July evening had to offer.

"You can push them in if they don't," Bev laughed, coming to sit next to him. She hummed at the sun on her shoulders, smiling at her boys. Bill was sitting near the edge of the clearing, fully dressed except for his shoes and socks, which were balled up next to Mike’s clothes.

There was a fit of noise, and she craned her neck to look towards the opening of the clearing.

Ben appeared seconds later, walking his bike towards the clearing. Stan was by his side, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, the top four buttons undone. He looked like he was burning up, his face was pink shiny with sweat.

Ben's shirt was dampened around the underarms and his neck, but he looked fine. They must have just caught up to each other.

"What got you, Stanley?" Bev called to him.

"Ran," he gasped. "Left my bike home because the chain broke. Dad put in an order for one." From his tone, it had sounded like a fight. Mr. Uris, after all, thought biking around town was silly when Stan had been gifted a new car as soon as he’d earned his license. He didn’t mind paying for the fuel, if that was his catch.

He just really didn’t understand how the group of them stuck to their bicycles on the muggy summer days as they tried to reclaim that feeling they’d left behind in middle school when their friendship was newly forged and every moment was sweet and stolen.

Beverly threw Stan her pack of cigarettes and lighter, and he caught them effortlessly. Stanley had the reflexes of an angel. "Are they here yet?" he asked, shooting a look around the clearing. His breath was beginning to even out as he stuck a cigarette between his teeth.

Bill shook his head. "Th-they're late."

He rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything on the subject. They never said anything about it. The open secret bubbled between them like a cushion of warm air, shared only with significant looks and secretive smiles when Eddie and Richie weren’t looking.

“They’d better hurry,” Bev declared, leaning back into Mike. He moved with her until she was comfortable. “If they take too much longer, I’m just jumping in.”

  
  


"What the  _ fuck _ are you doing, shitbrain?!" Eddie hissed through his teeth. "You're going to fall. You're probably going to break something, have you ever broken a bone? I can tell you that it hurts."

"Jesus Christ, Eds," Richie wheezed. His knuckles were white with the strain, and the toes of his sneakers were slipping. "Tryna disturb the entire tri-state area?"

Eddie just slapped his fingers — which was a terrible idea, because Richie nearly did fall back to his death in the middle of the Kaspbrak's yard. "Would you—Goddammit, Richie, you're going to fall. Get a better grip."

"Oh, like the one I've got on your dick—“

" _ Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth! _ "

He froze instantly. That was too loud. Fuck, much too loud. His mom was going to hear. She was going to come and check on him, and find none other than Richie Tozier hanging from his window sill at nine o'clock at night.

Richie, for once, was blessedly quiet.

Eddie breathed a concise and accurate  _ fuck _ before getting up and drawing the curtain back over his windows, ignoring Richie's protest. He creeped out of his room and down the hall towards his mother's bedroom. Everything was quiet. He couldn’t hear any movement, and that was usually an assurance enough on its own. Okay. He couldn't see a light on under her door. That's it, then. She really didn't hear anything.

Then, he thought, she wouldn't have. 5 milligrams of melatonin made sure she was down for the count every night.

With a new confidence in his step, went back to his room and shut the door behind him. (But softly, because he didn't want to risk it.)

"Okay, Rich, we're okay." He slung the curtains back. "Richie, what the fuck."

Richie, who was hanging straight down with his feet dangling had to crane his neck to look up at Eddie. "Hi Spaghetti, how's it hanging?"

Eddie frowned at him. "Why are you hanging? You're so stupid. Get up here." He pried Richie's hand up and pulled him up, threading his arm between the bars. Worlds colliding, he thought.

"I lost my footing," Richie grunted. He must have stuck his foot between a bit of panelling, because he heaved himself back up so they were eye level. “Gimme a second.” Eddie peeked behind him to watch how Richie felt around for the crook of the tree branch. When finally he got solid footing, he was bent at an awkward angle, braced with one hand closed around the black bars, and the other on the window sill. “Hand me the screwdriver.”

Nodding, Eddie went to retrieve the Phillips screwdriver stuck carefully under his mattress. He handed it off to Richie, who got straight to work undoing the screws.

There were only screws fitted into the top right and bottom left corners of the bars. They’d disposed of the others very quickly, cutting their whole _Operation: Prison Break_ operation down by half.

“Let’s see here,” Richie muttered, bent at an awkward angle to unscrew the bottom ones first.

Eddie held the bars and leaned back, pulling them tight against the paneling of the house.

_ Plink, plink, plink _ . The screws were dropped into the metal groove where the window rested. Richie fitted the screwdriver handle between his teeth, and Eddie told him he looked like a dumbass and tried not to stare.

_ Plink, plink _ , the bars loosened, and Eddie had to concentrate on not letting them fall.

Before Richie loosened the last screw, Eddie twisted his arm around one of the middle bars, supporting one of the cross-sections with the palm of his hand.

“Ready, Eddie?”

Eddie adjusted his feet. “Hurry it up, Richie.”

Snickering, he fitted the bit into the head of the screw. “Heard that one before,” he sighed dreamily. “It was a full night. Just me and your mom—“

“I’m seriously going to drop this on you.”

Richie whooped a laugh and went back to work. The screw joined the others, and the bars were left completely to Eddie. Richie breathed a curse and balanced against the window sill again. He chucked the screwdriver past Eddie, quickly forgotten. Richie gripped the bars next to Eddie’s hands, knuckle to knuckle. Richie’s hands were big, and Eddie adjusted his grip in order to give him space.

He leaned in so close Eddie could practically taste the sour hubba bubba he'd been chewing. “Got it?” he asked. Eddie fucking hated this part.

“Yeah, I got it. Try not to give me a goddamn heart attack this time.”

That’s all it took before Richie told Eddie to let go of the bars, and he pushed himself backwards. He caught a limb at the last possible second, grunting as the heavy bars knocked into his knee. He growled a curse and adjusted, shifting his feet the tiniest bit before looking up.

In the storm before last, in one of the really bad fits of storms Derry seemed to go through periodically, one of the upper limbs of the tree was torn. Sonia had to call someone over to cut it down. They left some of it. It was a strong section about a foot long.

Richie held tight onto this branch. He was on his tiptoes, his face screwed up something awful as he tried to lift the bars up there, too. One of the first times they did this Richie almost broke Eddie's window with them.

And the next time he’d knocked the window sill so bad that he put a spiderweb crack in the glass, and a sizable dent in the wood.

That was some months ago. He was good at this, now. He put the grate on the branch by the topmost center cross-sections, scooting it down the branch until it was secure. He lowered himself back down with a grin and a: “See? Easier than Bill in February.”

Eddie laughed, forgetting their need to be quiet for a moment.

Richie smiled at him, braced against his sill again, like it was second nature. He was a pile of iron filings, and Eddie was his magnet. “Hop to it, Eddie Spaghetti, we’re burning daylight.”

Cursing, Eddie scrambled. He pulled on his sneakers and cast a single glance towards his jacket before deciding he wouldn’t need it.

He was halfway to the window when he circled back and grabbed the windbreaker anyway. He grabbed his backpack, and handed it off to Richie, who unceremoniously dropped it to the grass below, narrowly missing the hedges. He pushed himself back until he was leaning against the trunk of the tree. He offered a hand out to Eddie, and Eddie didn’t think twice before taking it.

And then he let go, of course. He had to tie his windbreaker around his waist.

Eddie followed Richie out into the late July night, grinning at the heat and the wind tousling his hair.

_ Eddie’s _ bike was perfectly fine, but he still climbed on the pegs of Richie’s. He held onto his shoulders as they wound their way through Derry, and then took the road out of time. The sun was nearly completely set by the time they arrived to the quarry. The sky was lit up with the remnants of the day, illuminated by the brilliant strings of summer.

They ditched the bike by the roadside and worked their way through the brush towards the clearing, hands brushing ever so often. At one point, Richie’s hand slipped into his and squeezed.

Richie didn’t look at him, and Eddie was sort of glad. It was too dark to see the color in his cheeks, but he’d rather not risk it.

Their hands jumped apart once they heard the voices of their friends. The Losers weren’t too strung out, but they certainly looked impatient.

“We thought you might’ve got caught,” Ben spoke first.

Richie grinned wolfishly at him and slipped into one of his Voices. “Not so, Benjamin! I’m too good at my craft for such a slip up.”

“Which craft is that?” Stan asked, leveling him with a deadpan stare. The cigarette he held was used nearly up to the filter, yet he took one more pull before stamping it out.

“Rescuing pretty girls from dragon layers, Staniel. God, connect the dots, please.”

Eddie landed a swift kick to the back of his shin, and that’s all that it took to take Richie Tozier down. He yelled and fell dramatically, summoning crocodile tears quicker than Eddie could say  _ beep fucking beep _ .

“Why Eds? Such  _ betrayal _ .”

Beverly saved him from being kicked again.

“Are we ready?” she asked. “It’s dark, they’re gonna start soon.”

Eddie looked at Stan, eyebrows up. He nodded once to Richie. “Think we can roll him in?”

Stan’s grin was devious, but Richie popped back up before anyone could attempt to send him to his doom.

“Yeah, Bev’s right,” he sniffed. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Bll laughed as he climbed to his feet. “You’re so fuh-f-full of sh-shit, Richie.”

“Oh, funny. I ate Mrs. K out before grabbing Eddie, so maybe that's why.”

“ _ Beep beep, Trashmouth _ ,” Stan said before he could go any farther.

Eddie’s sigh was long-suffering as he took off his shoes and put his backpack aside.

It didn’t take the rest of them very long to get ready. Mikey was already down to his checkered boxers, for God’s sake!

Bev pulled her sundress up over her head and put her clothes in the little pile of Mike’s and Bill’s clothes. Eddie and Rich had their own pile, carefully blanketed from the ground with Eddie’s windbreaker.

It was properly dark now. The sun had fully tucked itself in for the night, but the Losers were a bundle of livewires. Swimming in the dark made Eddie nervous, but Ben made sure there were flashlights at the bottom where they always climbed out. And his first aid was in his backpack. And Richie was with him.

That was a non sequitur. He felt like that should’ve been _**but**__ Richie was with him_.

God knew that when Trashmouth was present, stupid shit was sure to abound. Then again, Eddie thought, he was pretty sure that described all of them.

He just knew this: if he had to get into stupid shit with anyone, it was Richie Tozier.

The water was a cool remedy to the sticky July heat, and the fireworks were bright enough to light up their faces. They  _ oo’d _ and  _ aah’d _ at every pop and explosion. Richie and Eddie sat on the rock in the middle of the reservoir with water up to their stomachs and shivering from the wind on their wet skin.

Underneath the surface, Eddie’s hand found Richie’s.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://stansflowercap.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> hope you liked it! if you did please comment xoxo


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